“Well…” It’s just dawning on me that Mom might be visiting. Didn’t Jana mention that? “It’s possible that you’re about to meet my mother. She never comes to New York, though, so I could be wrong.”
When I let myself into the condo a minute later, though, they’re both right there in the living room. “Hi guys,” I say cheerfully. “What’s this all about?”
“Oh! Heidi,” my mother chirps. “I’m leaving your father.”
“What?” I gasp.
“She won’t,” he says in a voice full of misery. “She’s just in shock.”
“About what?” I’m frozen in the entryway, afraid to walk inside. As if staying out of the room can help me avoid whatever is wrong.
Jason gives me a gentle nudge. He closes the door behind me and then squeezes my hand. I’ve got you, it says.
Unwilling to let go, I tow him into the living room with me.
“Evening,” he says. “Mrs. Pepper, I’m Jason.”
“Nice to meet you, too.” She gives him a feral head-to-toe examination, then turns to me. “Well done, Heidi. Is he good at managing his assets? Or will he bet your entire net worth on his ex-roommate’s pharmaceutical company and lose everything?”
I replay this outrageous sentence in my head and try to decipher it. “What’s happened?”
“Sit down,” my father says, indicating the sofa. When Jason and I sit down beside one another, my father gives Jason a polite nod of greeting. “Heidi, I have difficult news.”
“A cancelled dinner reservation is difficult news!” my mother shrieks. “This is Armageddon!”
My father closes his eyes in a show of distress and then opens them again. “I’m sorry to tell you that when I sign over your trust fund next week, it won’t be much good to you.”
All my blood stops circulating. “What? Why?”
“Because I invested it in Kafi’s company. And the FDA just shut them down for fraudulent practices.”
“Oh, shit,” Jason breathes beside me. “The Kafnar Corporation? I read about that. They were falsifying their lab data.”
My mother begins to cry silently.
“Omigod,” I say like a braindead girl. The foundations of my secure little world are crumbling. I thought the money would be waiting for me. And it isn’t. “You knew!” I gasp. Everything makes so much more sense now. “It’s not that you didn’t want to give the money to me! It was gone!”
My father hangs his head. “Until last week I still hoped that it would turn out okay. I trusted Kafi and his team.”
My anger recedes just a little. Kafi and my father played hockey together in college and then in Philadelphia, although Kafi retired when he was only twenty-seven to work at his father’s drug company. Of course my father trusted Kafi. You’re supposed to trust your best friend of thirty-five years.
“And I was upset that you’d left school. You’re going to have to work for a living like most people.”
I weigh this idea, too. And while I’ve hoped my trust fund could help get me the start I want, I realize that working isn’t a scary thing. I like working. That’s why I’d left school in the first place. Bryn Mawr felt so impractical. “If only you’d let me go to NYU for business,” I say in a whisper.
“That would have been…” He closes his eyes again. “A fine idea.” He sighs. “I’m so sorry, honey. I didn’t listen way back then. But you were only eighteen, and I wanted you safe in the hills of Pennsylvania.”
Jason and I exchange a glance. He smiles. “Everyone wants you safe. But none of us knows how to get it right.”
I take a deep breath and straighten my spine. Then I smile back at Jason. It’s an exercise in will. “Okay. This isn’t the end of the world,” I say slowly. “I enjoyed being a spoiled little rich girl. But it isn’t everything.”
Jason’s expression turns serious. “You impress me every day,” he says. “I hope you know that.”
I swallow hard, because it means a lot to hear that.
“And you’re pretty fun as poor chick, too. Besides, I just happen to know an apartment in Brooklyn that can’t wait to welcome you back.” He puts an arm around me.
“Thank you,” I choke out, leaning against him. What a year this has been!
My father clears his throat. “I’m truly sorry, sweetheart. I never thought it could turn out like this.”
I still don’t really know what’s happening. “Are you losing everything?”
“My liquid assets are probably gone.” He flinches. “I thought Kafi’s developmental drug was a safe bet. But I still have my job. For now. I may have to sell the Nashville home and downsize.”
Mom’s sobbing increases in volume.
“And the country club membership will have to go,” he says over her tears. “Everything frivolous.”
I eye my mother, wondering what she does any given day that isn’t frivolous. “Mama, calm down. Your mascara is starting to smear.”
She straightens up immediately and reaches for a tissue. “My poor girl,” she says, turning her teary face toward me. “This is devastating.”
It isn’t, though. Devastating is losing everything in an earthquake or a fire. Devastating is losing the person you love. My mom will come through with most of her designer clothes in a downsized condo somewhere swank.
“Hang in there, Mama. That’s just the shock talking.”
She leaps up, crosses to me, and grabs me into a tight hug. “You’re a good girl, Heidi Jo! Such a good girl.”
I glance beyond her perfumed arms to Jason, who lifts an eyebrow at me. His expression says, Sometimes you’re a very bad girl and I know all about it.
My smile pops into place. I’m so grateful to have him here with me. And I can’t wait to show him my gratitude.
“Mama,” I say gently. “Is there anything I can do for you right now?”
“No,” she sniffs. “I’m going home to Nashville to mourn.”
I bite back my opinions and pat her arm. “Well, call me when you’re feeling calmer. I have to head to Brooklyn and beg Rebecca for a full-time job.” I stare down my father. “Can I assume that you won’t stop her from hiring me?”
He waves a hand in a gesture of assent. Poor Daddy is worn out. I feel a pang of sympathy for his stubborn self.
I kiss my parents goodbye and then let Jason steer me back into the elevator. “You’re going to be okay,” he says.
“Oh, I know it.”
“Sorry about the money. It doesn’t make you a spoiled brat to be mad about it.”
“Doesn’t it?” I sigh. “That’s going right to the top of my wish list.”
“What is?”
“Becoming spoiled again. That sums things up pretty well.”
He laughs. “I’ll spoil you later, Hot Pepper. I can’t wait.”
40
Jason
In the elevator, I pull out my phone, because we need an Uber back to Brooklyn. But I’m distracted by the fact that I have twenty-five new texts.
I read the one on top first. It’s from Silas. Oh shit! Is Heidi okay?
Hmm. It’s possible that the media has this story. The next text—from Trevi—has a link attached. This sounds bad, he writes. The headline reads: “Hockey Commissioner’s Personal Finances Engulfed by Kafnar Scandal.”
And the byline is Miranda Wager’s.
“Oh shit,” I whisper as the elevator doors open. Out the windows I spot the news vans on the street. And now I know why they’re out there.
Heidi spots them, too, and stops in the center of the lobby. “Do you think they’re here for…” I can hear her mind clicking along. My girl is smart.
“I’m afraid so,” I say, tucking my arm around her. “Does this place have a backdoor?” If they decide that Heidi is part of the story, she could end up with her face in the news stories alongside her dad.
The flustered doorman brings our suitcases out. “You could exit through the parking garage,” he says. “Can I call you a car?”
“Yes, please,” I say immediately.
“Right away, sir.” He rings for the elevator again, and Heidi and I get onto it, this time heading toward the basement.
My girl’s lips are in a thin, worried line as we exit into the cool underground space and walk toward the exit. “I’m worried about my mom,” she says. “The woman has never worked a day in her life.”
“Maybe she won’t have to,” I point out.
We emerge onto East 77th, and the first person we see is Miranda Wager herself.
“Shit.”
Heidi gasps as Miranda takes a picture of her.